Gender, Strain, and Opportunity: An Explanation of the Relationship between Child Maltreatment, Victimization, and Offending

• In Event: Self-Control, Strain and the Victimization-Offending Link

Abstract

Despite existing knowledge, the explanations for why child maltreatment is such a significant risk factor for adolescent victimization and offending are incomplete. Theoretical explanations of offending and victimization have generally addressed separate stages of these relationships. General strain theory has been applied to explaining the onset of criminal behavior, in translating how child maltreatment indirectly increases offending outcomes, while risky lifestyles and opportunities theories have more often been used to support the continuity of offending and victimization. Certain experiences of victimization, emotional health effects, coping mechanisms, and opportunities for offending and victimization that differentially affect females have largely been excluded from these empirical models, as well. Consequently, there is a need for research that more fully explains the links between child maltreatment, offending, and victimization, and across gender. The current study presents an integrated theoretical model incorporating general strain and risky lifestyles/opportunities theories to trace the onset and continuity of victimization and offending for both males and females and empirically assesses the integrated model employing three waves of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) data.

Author

• Amaia Iratzoqui, Florida State University